In the year 726 from the founding of the City, in the consulship of the emperor Augustus Caesar for the sixth time and Marcus Agrippa for the second, Caesar, understanding that little would have been accomplished in Spain in two hundred years if he allowed the Cantabrians and the Astures, the two bravest nations of Spain, to live by their own laws, opened the gates of Janus and himself set out with an army for the Spanish provinces.1
1 Anno ab urbe condita DCCXXVI imperatore Augusto Caesare sexies et bis M. Agrippa consulibus Caesar parum in Hispania per ducentos annos actum intellegens, si Cantabros atque Astures, duas fortissimas Hispaniae gentes, suis uti legibus sineret, aperuit Iani portas atque in Hispanias ipse cum exercitu profectus est.
1Augustus’s sixth consulship, with Agrippa, was in 28 BC; he campaigned in person against the Cantabrians in 26–25 BC.
The Cantabrians and the Astures are part of the province of Gallaecia, where the outstretched ridge of the Pyrenees runs down towards the north, not far from the Ocean and along its course.
2 Cantabri et Astures Gallaeciae prouinciae portio sunt, qua extentum Pyrenaei iugum haud procul secundo Oceano sub septentrione deducitur.
These, not only ready to defend their own liberty but daring also to snatch away that of their neighbours, ravaged the Vaccaei, the Turmogi and the Autrigones with constant raids. So Caesar pitched camp at Segisama, and with three columns embraced almost the whole of Cantabria.
3 hi non solum propriam libertatem tueri parati uerum etiam finitimorum praeripere ausi, Vaccaeos et Turmogos et Autrigonas adsiduis eruptionibus populabantur. igitur Caesar apud Segisamam castra posuit, tribus agminibus totam paene amplexus Cantabriam.
After his army had long been worn out in vain and often brought into danger, he at last ordered a fleet to be brought up from the Aquitanian gulf across the Ocean upon the unwary enemy, and forces to be landed.
4 diu fatigato frustra atque in periculum saepe deducto exercitu, tandem ab Aquitanico sinu per Oceanum incautis hostibus admoueri classem atque exponi copias iubet.
Then at last the Cantabrians, engaging in a very great battle beneath the walls of Attica and being defeated, fled to Mount Vinnius, most safe by nature, where they were almost utterly consumed by the famine of the siege. Then the town of Racilium, which resisted with great force and for a long time, was at last taken and destroyed.
5 tunc demum Cantabri sub moenibus Atticae maximo congressi bello et uicti in Vinnium montem natura tutissimum confugerunt, ubi obsidionis fame ad extremum paene consumpti sunt. Racilium deinde oppidum magna ui ac diu repugnans, postremo captum ac dirutum est.
Moreover the legates Antistius and Firmius subdued, in great and grievous wars, the farther parts of Gallaecia, which, thick with mountains and forests, are bounded by the Ocean.
6 praeterea ulteriores Gallaeciae partes, quae montibus siluisque consitae Oceano terminantur, Antistius et Firmius legati magnis grauibusque bellis perdomuerunt.
For they encircled with a siege Mount Medullius, which overhangs the river Minius and on which a great multitude of men was defending itself, hemming it in with a ditch fifteen miles long.
7 nam et Medullium montem Minio flumini inminentem, in quo se magna multitudo hominum tuebatur, per quindecim milia passuum fossa circumsaeptum obsidione cinxerunt.
So when this race of men, savage and ferocious by nature, understood that it was neither able to endure a siege nor equal to undertaking a war, it rushed to a voluntary death from fear of slavery. For almost all of them, vying with one another, killed themselves by fire, sword and poison.
8 itaque ubi se gens hominum trux natura et ferox neque tolerandae obsidioni sufficientem neque suscipiendo bello parem intellegit, ad uoluntariam mortem seruitutis timore concurrit. nam se paene omnes certatim igne ferro ac ueneno necauerunt.
The Astures, however, having pitched camp by the river Astura, would have overwhelmed the Romans with great plans and strength, had they not been betrayed and forestalled. Attempting suddenly to overwhelm, with three columns likewise, three legates with their legions, divided among three camps, they were discovered through the betrayal of their own people.
9 Astures uero positis castris apud Asturam flumen Romanos, nisi proditi praeuentique essent, magnis consiliis uiribusque oppressissent. tres legatos cum legionibus suis in tria castra diuisos tribus aeque agminibus obruere repente moliti, suorum proditione detecti sunt.
Afterwards Carisius caught them in war and overcame them, though with no small loss to the Romans as well. Part of them, slipping away from the battle, fled to Lancia. And when the soldiers were preparing to attack the surrounded city with fire, the general Carisius both obtained from his own men a halt to the burning and exacted from the barbarians a willingness to surrender. For he was earnestly striving to leave the city whole and unharmed as a witness to his victory.
10 hos postea Carisius bello exceptos non parua etiam Romanorum clade superauit. pars eorum proelio elapsa Lancham confugit. cumque milites circumdatam urbem incendio adoriri pararent, dux Carisius et a suis cessationem impetrauit incendii et a barbaris uoluntatem deditionis exegit. studiose enim nitebatur integram atque incolumem ciuitatem uictoriae suae testem relinquere.
Caesar bestowed this honour on the Cantabrian victory: he ordered the gates of war to be held shut with a bolt at that time also. Thus Janus was then closed for the second time by Caesar, and for the fourth time since the founding of the City.
11 Cantabricae uictoriae hunc honorem Caesar detulit, ut tunc quoque belli portas claustro cohiberi iuberet. ita tunc secundo per Caesarem, quarto post urbem conditam clausus est Ianus.
After this Claudius Drusus, Caesar’s stepson, having received Gaul and Raetia by lot, subdued in arms the greatest and bravest nations of Germany.
12 Post hoc Claudius Drusus, priuignus Caesaris, Galliam Raetiamque sortitus maximas fortissimasque gentes Germaniae armis subegit.
For at that time, as if they were hastening towards a day appointed for peace, all the nations were stirred in waves either to make trial of war or to settle a treaty, ready either to accept terms of peace if they were defeated, or to enjoy a quiet liberty if they won.
13 nam tunc, ueluti ad constitutum pacis diem festinarent, ita omnes ad experientiam belli decisionemue foederis undatim gentes commouebantur aut suscepturae condiciones pacis, si uincerentur, aut usurae quieta libertate, si uincerent.
The Norici, the Illyrians, the Pannonians, the Dalmatians, the Moesians, the Thracians and the Dacians, the Sarmatians, and very many and very great peoples of Germany were, by various generals, either overcome or held back, or else shut out by the barrier of the greatest rivers, the Rhine and the Danube.
14 Norici Illyrii Pannonii Dalmatae Moesi Thraces et Daci Sarmatae plurimique et maximi Germaniae populi per diuersos duces uel superati uel repressi uel etiam obiectu maximorum fluminum, Rheni Danuuiique, seclusi sunt.
In Germany Drusus first subdued the Usipetes, then the Tencteri and the Chatti. The Marcomanni he cut down almost to extermination.
15 Drusus in Germania primum Usipetes, deinde Tencteros et Chattos perdomuit. Marcomannos paene ad internecionem cecidit.
Afterwards he overcame the bravest nations — to whom nature gave strength, and habit the experience of their strength — the Cherusci, the Suebi and the Sugambri, all together in a single war, but one that was harsh for his own men as well.
16 postea fortissimas nationes et quibus natura uires, consuetudo experientiam uirium dabat, Cheruscos Suebos et Sygambros pariter uno bello sed etiam suis aspero superauit.
Their valour and ferocity can be judged from this: that their women too, whenever they were shut in among their wagons by the Romans forestalling them, when missiles failed them, or anything at all that fury could use as a missile, dashed their little sons on the ground and hurled them in the faces of the enemy — twice parricides in each killing of a son.
17 quorum ex eo considerari uirtus ac feritas potest, quod mulieres quoque eorum, siquando praeuentu Romanorum inter plaustra sua concludebantur, deficientibus telis uel qualibet re, qua uelut telo uti furor possit, paruos filios conlisos humi in hostium ora iaciebant, in singulis filiorum necibus bis parricidae.
At that time too, in Africa, Cossus, Caesar’s general, restrained the Musulamii and the Gaetuli, who were roaming too widely, by narrowing their borders, and compelled them by fear to keep away from the Roman frontiers.
18 Tunc etiam in Africa Musolanos et Gaetulos latius uagantes Cossus dux Caesaris artatis finibus cohercuit atque a Romanis limitibus abstinere metu conpulit.
Meanwhile envoys of the Indians and the Scythians, having crossed the whole world, at last found Caesar at Tarragona, a city of Hither Spain — beyond which they could seek him no further — and poured back upon Caesar the glory of Alexander the Great:
19 Interea Caesarem apud Tarraconem citerioris Hispaniae urbem legati Indorum et Scytharum toto orbe transmisso tandem ibi inuenerunt, ultra quod iam quaerere non possent, refuderuntque in Caesarem Alexandri Magni gloriam:
for just as an embassy of Spaniards and Gauls had come to Alexander in the midst of the East, at Babylon, out of regard for peace, so the Indian of the dawn and the Scythian of the north, bearing the gifts of their nations, besought Caesar as suppliants in Spain, at the farthest end of the West.
20 quem sicut Hispanorum Gallorumque legatio in medio oriente apud Babylonam contemplatione pacis adiit, ita hunc apud Hispaniam in occidentis ultimo supplex cum gentilicio munere eous Indus et Scytha boreus orauit.
When the Cantabrian war had been waged for five years, and all Spain had been laid down and set at rest in an everlasting peace, with a certain breathing-space from weariness, Caesar returned to Rome.
21 Cantabrico bello per quinque annos acto totaque Hispania in aeternam pacem cum quadam respiratione lassitudinis reclinata ac reposita, Caesar Romam rediit.
In those days too he waged many wars himself and many through his generals and legates. For among others Piso too was sent against the Vindelici; having subdued them, he came victorious to Caesar at Lyon.
22 Quibus etiam diebus multa per se multaque per duces et legatos bella gessit. nam inter ceteros et Piso aduersum Vindelicos missus est; quibus subactis uictor ad Caesarem Lugdunum uenit.
Tiberius, Caesar’s stepson, destroyed with most bloody slaughter the Pannonians, who were swelling with a new rising.
23 Pannonios nouo motu intumescentes Tiberius priuignus Caesaris cruentissima caede deleuit.
And the same man straightway took the Germans in hand in war, of whom he led away forty thousand captives as victor.
24 idemque continuo Germanos bello arripuit, e quibus quadraginta milia captiuorum uictor abduxit.
This war, truly a very great and most fearsome one, was waged with fifteen legions for three years; and there was hardly any greater war, as Suetonius attests, after the Punic War.2
25 quod reuera bellum maximum et formidulosissimum quindecim legionibus per triennium gestum est, nec fere ullum maius bellum, sicut Suetonius adtestatur, post Punicum fuit.
2Suetonius (Tiberius 16) says this of the great Pannonian and Illyrian revolt of AD 6–9, not of a German war.
At about the same time Quintilius Varus, who behaved with astonishing arrogance and avarice towards the subject peoples, was utterly destroyed with three legions by the rebelling Germans.
26 Sub eodem uero tempore Quintilius Varus cum tribus legionibus a Germanis rebellantibus, mira superbia atque auaritia in subiectos agens, funditus deletus est.
Caesar Augustus took this disaster to the commonwealth so grievously that often, through the violence of his grief, he would dash his head against the wall and cry out: “Quintilius Varus, give back the legions!”
27 quam reipublicae cladem Caesar Augustus adeo grauiter tulit, ut saepe per uim doloris caput parieti conlidens clamaret Quintili Vare, redde legiones.
Agrippa overcame the people of the Bosporus, and, having recovered in war the Roman standards which they had once carried off under Mithridates, compelled the vanquished to surrender.
28 Bosforanos uero Agrippa superauit et signis Romanis, quae illi quondam sub Mithridate sustulerant, bello recuperatis uictos ad deditionem coegit.
The Parthians — as though, with the whole world either subdued or pacified, they were marked out before the eyes of all, and the whole vigour of the Roman Empire was to be turned against them alone, gnawed as they were by the old consciousness of the slaughter of Crassus that awaited vengeance — of their own accord sent back to Caesar the standards they had taken when Crassus was killed, and, handing over royal hostages, earned a firm treaty by a faithful supplication.
29 Parthi, quasi toto terrarum orbe uel domito uel pacato omnium oculis signarentur atque in se solos omnis uigor Romani imperii uertendus esset, quippe quos pristina ulciscendae Crassianae caedis conscientia mordebat, ultro signa, quae Crasso interfecto abstulerant, ad Caesarem remiserunt regiisque obsidibus traditis firmum foedus fideli supplicatione meruerunt.